disk format readable by mac and windows guid

If I wanted to use it with Mac OS or Time Machine backup (which is my intent), I’ll need to format the drive for my Mac. It brought me to a webpage on Seagate’s site, where it clearly indicated the drive was initially set up to work with a Windows PC. Since I wanted to use it on Mac, I clicked the blue logo with the text “Start_Here-Mac”. When I opened it, the default content was all there. When I connected the Seagate to my Mac, the drive icon showed up like this. I bought a brand new 2TB Seagate Expansion to backup my MacBook Pro before I updated it to the latest macOS. Most External Hard Drives Are Initiated with NTFSĭuring the last several years, I’ve used a few external drives, including a 500GB WD My Passport, 32GB Lexar flash drive, and a few others. How to Partition an External Hard Drive on Mac.How to Format an External Drive for Mac.Most External Hard Drives Are Initiated with NTFS.Otherwise, the drive that's formatted on Windows may not work on Mac. So exFAT is more suitable for storing large files and using with larger storage devices.įinally, it's best to format your external drive on your Mac rather than a PC, as macOS has stricter allocation unit size limitations. Besides, it's also less efficient at handling larger files sizes and has slower read and write speeds than exFAT. FAT32 is also supported on Linux but it has a maximum file size limitation of 4GB and a maximum partition size of 8 TB. To work on macOS and Windows, a drive needs to be formatted in either FAT32 or exFAT. Generally speaking, it's not advisable to use MBR unless you have an older system (Windows XP or earlier or OS X 10.4 Tiger or earlier) and need compatibility with legacy software. Additionally, it supports UEFI, which is required for booting from a disk larger than 2 TB. On the other hand, GUID Partition Map, also called GPT, allows for up to 128 partitions and disk size up to 9.4 ZB. It also only allows a drive to create 4 primary partitions.

The sources are correct in that Master Boot Record doesn't support disk size larger than 2 TB. It's recommended to select GUID Partition Map as the scheme and exFAT as the format if you want to use the drive on both macOS and Windows.

Disk format readable by mac and windows guid